A
male swet sings from his cavity, waiting for Mrs. Goodbar to arrive.

The female enters the
cavity with the male still inside.

Here
she comes.

A
female northern saw-whet watches as I approach her nest.

Another picture of innocence: a young
saw-whet owl, approximately 4 weeks old.

Another
male saw-whet filling the night with song.

Saw-whet Facts

The northern saw-whet owl (Aegolius acadicus) is a
smallish cousin of the boreal owl. Like the boreal, saw-whet owls are
obligate, secondary cavity nesters, meaning that they have to nest in cavities
and that they don't make those cavities. Instead they rely on the work of
the primary excavators such as flickers and woodpeckers to make the place they
will call home for two months each year. In addition, they are more than willing to
make their home in a constructed nest box. The saw-whet is silent
for most of the year. During the breeding season (March through May),
however, the male saw-whet can frequently be heard singing its monotonous,
yet harmonic "toot..toot..
toot..." song as he attempts to attract a female to his selected nesting
cavity. Male
saw-whet owls in northeast Minnesota average approximately 80 grams in weight,
meaning they are 20-30 grams lighter than the male boreal owl. Saw-whets dine primarily on small mammals
including red-backed voles, deer mice,
woodland jumping mice, and meadow voles. As winter approaches, saw-whets
migrate south in mind-numbing numbers (see how many I
trap in my modest back yard). As winter takes it's last frigid
breaths, the owls turn around and migrate to the north for a month or so of
reproductive frenzy.

Click on
the map to see if the northern saw-whet owl can be found in a forest near
you.

Habitat

Northern saw-whet owls appear
to be very adaptable in the habitat they require for survival. A constant
variable and one that defines its distribution is the need for naturally
occurring cavities or for artificial nest boxes. I have found saw-whets
nesting in older aspen, paper birch, white pine, and red pine in northeast
Minnesota. While the boreal owl prefers larger tracts of boreal forest
habitat, the saw-whet is often found near smaller pockets of boreal forest in my
study area, but never far from thick patches of lowland conifers.